


Red

by Eins_Esk



Category: Control (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Control Points, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, HRAs are NOT indestructible, I love the Golden Suit, Injury, Shooting, Some hurt/comfort, Underhill is mentioned, dark places, extradimensional entity, fighting the hiss, let's hurt one of them, or maybe both, the Rangers are there too, the mold, the turntable, they are both so shy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26683930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eins_Esk/pseuds/Eins_Esk
Summary: There has been another Hiss sighting at the turntable, so, naturally, the Director needs to go and clear it out. Emily just finished her field training and she’s determined to go with Jesse. Nobody could’ve foreseen what’s about to happen down in Containment.
Relationships: Jesse Faden & Simon Arish, Jesse Faden/Emily Pope
Comments: 42
Kudos: 100





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank [podgle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/podgle/pseuds/podgle) ([here's her tumblr](https://tumblr.com/blog/podgle)) for beta reading this story. I don't think I would have posted it without her help. Thank you so much!

Jesse sighed as she dropped into the chair opposite of Emily’s. She let her head fall into her hands as her Head of Research looked up from her notes with a frown.

“Jesse”, she said. “What’s wrong?”

The Director let out another sigh before saying, “I need to go back to the turntable. There was another Hiss sighting and it needs to be cleared out. Again. It’s like they randomly spawn, I don’t understand why. The projector is turned off, they should be getting fewer, not more.”

Emily nodded. She observed the way Jesse wrung her hands and the way she was clutching the service weapon like a lifeline, even here, in Central Executive. There was dust on her golden suit, ash, and Emily thought she could still see fresh traces of the rainbow-like fog from the Hiss Agents Jesse had killed in Dead Letters.

“No”, she then said.

“No?” Jesse looked up at her blonde Head of Research. Emily looked perfect, like always. Her white shirt was clean, dark pants accentuated her slim figure and not one hair was out of place. Jesse’s been working here long enough to know that appearances were important. Emily leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table looking intently at Jesse.

“No”, she repeated. “What you need is a meal and a good night’s sleep. Or at least one of those. You’re exhausted. If your concentration breaks you might be injured”, Emily said, with the frown still intact. “Or worse”, she added.

Jesse rolled her head from left to right, her eyes falling shut slowly. Normally, she wouldn’t let on that she was so tired. But Emily already saw right through her anyways.

“You have a headache”, Emily observed. “You can’t go out fighting like this. And please, Jesse, take some Rangers with you next time you go somewhere to kill something.”

“I can’t take them. They might get hurt.”

“Yes, that’s true. But without them _you_ might get hurt. When they’re with you, they’re safer than alone. And you cannot do everything on your own. This is not your fault, this is not-“

“It is on me”, Jesse intercepted. “I am the Director. It is my duty to protect the people and the Oldest House.”

“That’s true. But you can’t do that if you’re dead. You picked up a dead man’s gun and you’ve been jerked around the Astral Plane, our Plane and a strange, dimension-less Motel ever since. You never received any training in this and you’re doing phenomenally but that doesn’t mean that you have to get yourself killed out of a strange sense of duty.”

Jesse knew that Emily was right. She couldn’t take another fight like this. She was exhausted, tired and lacking concentration. She already fucked up so many fights. She almost died trying to defeat Mr. Tommasi, twice. She didn’t want to die. Jesse had dedicated her whole life to finding this place, to finding Dylan. She wouldn’t just throw it all away now that she had finally found it.

“Okay. You’re right. I’m going to get some sleep and after that I will go back to the Hiss.”

“After that you’ll eat something. And then you may go back to clearing out the Hiss.”

“Fine, Emily. Alright.”

Emily nodded, content with her friend’s answer. She’d been very concerned when Jesse went around alone in the Foundation. When she cleansed the Nail without taking help. Emily herself had sent Rangers after the Director, because she’d feared for Jesse’s life and she had been right to do so from what she gathered about the fight with Hiss-Marshall. Jesse hadn’t talked about it. She just came back, blood on her suit, dust in her hair, asking questions like always. And with all the personnel around Emily could not assess Jesse’s injuries without getting suspicious looks. So she smiled and answered what she could before seeing Jesse taking off again to another dark place within the Oldest House. She jumped around Control Points without ever telling anyone where she went next. She seemed to know exactly when and where a Hiss attack was going to take place. Like she could feel it. Maybe Polaris guided her.

The thought of her wandering off alone again made her frown once more.

“I’m doing it, I promise”, Jesse said, misinterpreting Emily’s expression. Emily immediately brightened, smiling at the Director.

“Alright, that’s good.”

Emily watched as Jesse got up slowly. She seemed to have an injury on her left arm, she cradled it. Maybe from launching too many big objects? Or from falling, when her levitation ran out of power in a fight? Maybe some Hiss had launched something heavy at her and she hadn’t been able to avoid it completely.

When Jesse left Central Executive behind, walking down the long hall to the Director’s Office she was sure that she wouldn’t be able to sleep at all. Her wrist was killing her, the couch in her office wasn’t all that comfortable. She could still feel Trench’s presence in the room, even though his body vanished. Did the Oldest House shift it somewhere else, like it changed the interior and the blood-strained floor? Or did some of the people working here take it somewhere?

Maybe when she woke up, she wouldn’t be here, either. If she ever fell asleep, of course. The atmosphere in her office was a lot more inviting now, but she still felt unease at the big room. She stared at the desk. Paperwork was piling up on it.

Now that she was the Director, people kept bringing stuff to her for her approval. Money issues, funding for the sectors, bills, even complaints. She had to look through them even though she didn’t have the faintest idea what to do about them. She had to clear out the Hiss so that the lockdown could be lifted. She had to get Underhill to recognize her authority. She had to do so many things that she was getting anxious. The people wanted out, they had families and pets. There were AWEs happening outside that would need teams to examine. And of course, they were severely understaffed with the Hiss possessing so many people without HRAs. All those families that needed to be informed about their deaths.

Jesse shed her suit jacket and blouse, down to the plain white tank top she was wearing underneath. She took her shoes off and pulled the elastic out of her hair, letting it tumble free before sitting down on the couch. Her wrist was swelling and on top of that she saw bruises forming everywhere on her arm.

The half light in the room indicated that the building knew about her intent to rest. She didn’t want to know how this could even be possible. The normally bright room was dimly lit in warm colors that didn’t help at all with putting her at ease.

She almost expected another vision from Trench or Darling or whomever, but all she got was a silent knock at her door. She promptly chose to ignore it. Whatever it was, it could wait, now that she decided to actually rest a little bit. A second knock a few moments later indicated that the person on the other side was still there, but she stayed silent. Nothing happened for a little while.

Hearing the door open, she trained Pierce at it. The person entered and looked at her with big blue eyes when she heard the unmistakable sound of the gun charging a devastating shot. She froze. Jesse immediately lowered the gun, putting it away safely again.

“Emily”, she breathed.

“Sorry”, the Head of Research said, shaken. “I shouldn’t have- I- I mean I- uh.” She trailed off. “I got the first aid kit for your arm. And I also thought maybe you’d be willing to bear with me for a few minutes. I have a theory I need to talk through.”

“Of course”, Jesse said. She just couldn’t say no to those eyes. She just couldn’t say no to Emily at all, even though she really, really needed to rest. She wondered why Emily decided to come here. She was the one suggesting she rest in the first place.

“I’m a trained first aider”, Emily rambled, busying herself with the first aid kit. She was still a bit shaken up from having the Service Weapon trained at her, even if it was just Jesse reacting to a potential threat. This instinct had probably saved the life of the Director more than once. “It is mandatory for all personnel to take a course every other year. Mine was just before the whole Hiss mess started. It’s why I couldn’t finish my training hours before now.”

“I’m sure you’re more than capable, Emily. You excel at everything you do”, she smiled somewhat awkwardly, hoping she hadn’t said too much.

“Oh, no. That is not true”, Emily said quietly. And then, louder, “It will be enough to patch you up again. Come on, show me your wrist. Looks sprained.”

Emily knelt before Jesse and cleaned some of the bigger cuts on her arm with antiseptic, making Jesse flinch. “Don’t be such a baby”, the researcher chastised, laughing a little bit. It was cute, how Jesse would just look with one eye, the other one clenched shut tightly. She then put salve onto the wrist, wrapping it up with precision. It would impede Jesse’s movements, but it would make sure that joint wouldn’t be injured further.

“Here, take these”, she offered two tiny pills to Jesse. It was probably something to soothe the headache and the pain in her wrist.

“Thank you, Emily.”

“No problem. Can’t have my favorite Director running around with an injury, hurting like that, now, can I?”

“I’m the only Director here, Emily.”

“You’d still be my favorite if there were more”, Emily replied honestly, which made Jesse smile for real.

“I don’t think I can follow your theory right now, Em. I’m sorry”, she said. Her eyes were shutting on their own accord now that she felt better and less uneasy in this room. Emily just spread calm and order everywhere and her wrist wasn’t hurting as much anymore, due to the pills she’d taken. The traces she felt of Trench’s presence were gone now that the researcher was here.

“No problem, Jesse. Just lie down, I’m gonna tell you what I found out about the Hiss chant. Maybe you can think of something to add to it.”

Hadn’t Emily already told her what she thought about the chant? “Alright, then”, she said, nevertheless.

Emily started talking. She watched as Jesse’s eyes fell shut just a minute or two into her monologue. _Mission accomplished_ , she thought. She had a work group gather samples of every crystal, sand and stone down in Foundation and people gathering up all the data scattered around the Astral Bleed. Normally she’d be right there with them, cataloging and sorting through it, but she decided to finish her field training first.

Most of the bureau’s staff was happy to have Jesse as the new Director, except maybe Underhill, who had been completely uninterested in anything not related to the mold. But seemingly no one was concerned about Jesse’s wellbeing when she left the secure parts to clear out the Hiss or to open sealed parts of the Oldest House.

Arish needed his Rangers to secure the building, but Emily had gotten a handful of them from him to accompany Jesse, to make sure she was safe along with them.

Jesse would absolutely need a good office assistant. _Someone to look through all of this stuff_ , Emily thought. There were a whole lot of reports that didn’t even belong here, but someone thought it would be a good idea to pile the Director with all of these unnecessary papers.

Emily looked up from the desk to watch Jesse. Her red hair was flaring out around her, but she was completely still. Just her breathing indicated that she was alive. It was strange. Emily had imagined her being a restless sleeper.

Not that she had imagined Jesse in bed. Sleeping. Doing other things than sleep. Absolutely not. But she could admit to herself that she did like the Director. A lot.

The red Bakelite telephone glared at her. The Board was sending cryptic messages to Jesse. Trench, Marshall and even Darling were sending theirs. Who knows what messages Jesse got through this thing. Dead people and unknown entities giving instructions to someone who had only just discovered that Altered Items, Objects of Power and AWEs existed. Emily guessed that any other person would already be out of their mind. But then again, Jesse saw her entire town’s population disappear into a slide projector. She saw a friend turn into a dog-like thing. She saw horrors that shouldn’t have been seen by a child. Her brother had been taken away from her and she was left alone to cope on her own in the foster system and then alone, with no one to believe what she said. And with no one to believe _in_ her.

Emily sighed. She might not have had a picture perfect childhood either, but comparing it to what Jesse had survived made it look like a dream come true. She rummaged around the office closet for a blanket and saw a bunch of outfits stacked in there, too. The expedition gear Jesse bought with her from a trip into the jukebox was there. Another place she went alone. When she came back, she was always hurt in some way or another. Emily didn’t like it at all.

She pulled the tactical response gear out along with a soft woolen blanket and put the clothes aside on a chair before using the blanket to cover Jesse. Satisfied with her work she silently left the room to get some rest herself.

She hadn’t cleaned out any of Doctor Darling’s offices. Her offices now, as the Head of Research. Being the Head of Research at such a young age was unusual, but then again, being the Director this young was unusual, too. Maybe that was why Jesse came to her with questions and for a break from all of this madness? They were roughly the same age. Emily had read the files that were not classified, had seen what the bureau did, shadowing her, cataloging every move she made without ever intervening. They studied her like a lab rat since the AWE happened in Ordinary, seventeen long years ago, when Emily herself was a child. Maybe it was wrong to have read her file, Emily thought. There was personal information contained in them, after all.

Emily went into Darling’s office, searching for a couch to lie down. She didn’t feel good in between all of the files, research papers and theories she’d never seen before. They were mocking her, showing her what she hadn’t even known for years, even though it had been right before her eyes with just one door in between. It would take her years to look through all of the data in front of her. If she even got to look through them, since she now had to examine everything her people brought back from the Foundation.

It took her a long time to find rest in this space that wasn’t really hers, thinking about Jesse in the other office, in a room that was hers, but couldn’t feel like it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a plot bunny, so I absolutely had to write this story. It will be multichaptered. I hope you enjoyed the first part!


	2. Chapter 2

When Jesse awoke she didn’t know how much time had gone by. It was almost impossible to know time in the Oldest House, since it had no windows. _Reminder: The Oldest House does_ not _have windows._ She noticed that she was covered in a soft blanket. She also didn’t remember a single word from what Emily had told her about the Hiss chant. _It must’ve been her intent to put me to sleep_ , she thought while folding up the blanket, putting it back into the closet. 

Her tactical response gear had been laid out. Jesse did like the golden suit. She especially liked the way Emily’s eyes lit up when she wore it. But her Head of Research was right, if she intended a trip to the turntable to kill Hiss, then the suit was the wrong outfit. It was ruined anyways and would need the dry cleaners if they ever got out of here. She at least suspected that Emily had pulled the clothes out for her. She didn’t really believe that the Oldest House could shift things this tiny to a precise location like the chair. She hoped it could not.

Putting on the gear she knew why it was clever to use it. It didn’t constrict her movements like the suit did. She hoped that she looked somewhat professional in it, even though she couldn’t put the second glove on because of her bandaged wrist.

Jesse actually felt rested and ready for another fight. She’d check in with Emily at Central Executive and to talk with Arish. Maybe the Hiss weren’t at the turntable anymore and she didn’t want to be surprised by them in a dingy small hallway with no space to move around.

The long empty hallways didn’t unnerve her anymore. In her Hiss-induced nightmare vision she missed the emptiness. It made her think about how they would (hopefully) get back to a normal she never knew. A normal where people were working here and went home at night. Jesse would have to get used to people moving around the hallways, chatting busily, copying, typing. She made a mental note to be nice to every office assistant she ever met.

Entering Central Executive she stopped in her tracks for a few seconds. She saw five Rangers in full gear gathered around her Head of Research. But Emily wasn’t dressed as she normally was. Instead of her white blouse and dark dress pants she was wearing combat boots, black tactical pants much like her own and a dark shirt. Her HRA was strapped above it, but she had opted against a helmet, so her blonde hair shone in the artificial light of the Oldest House. She looked as if she had walked out of a Hollywood movie.

“Jesse”, she called out in greeting, lifting one arm. She wore a grin brighter than ever, seemingly excited.

“Emily”, Jesse said somewhat breathlessly, wearing a crooked smile. “What’s going on?”

“Miss Pope here finished her field training”, Arish said, stepping closer as Jesse reached the inverted pyramid where Emily stood. “With bravura, if I might add.” 

Emily grinned proudly.

_Of course she did_ , thought Jesse. Emily just didn’t do things less than perfectly. She promptly thought about how that might affect her. If people expected perfection all the time, what lengths did the blonde genius go to achieve it? How horrible and insecure would she feel if something didn’t turn out right and she just couldn’t tell anyone about it?

“I didn’t cheat or anything”, Emily said nervously when Jesse didn’t say anything and just looked into space, thoughtful. Her friend’s words shook her out of it, though.

“Of course not, Emily”, she hurriedly said, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. Now she was one reason more for Emily to think she had to do everything one hundred percent. _Damn this_. “So”, she continued. No point in getting lost in thought, again. “All cleared for fieldwork?”

“Exactly!”, Emily said.

“She promptly wrangled five Rangers out of my understaffed units. I object, once again!”, said Arish with a laugh. So he actually didn’t mean it. But he did point out that this lockdown and the dead and/or Hiss-turned Rangers were a problem.

“I’m sure she had a good reason”, Jesse said. “But I see your point. We will have to employ a lot of new staff once the lockdown is lifted.”

Arish and Emily both nodded, along with the Rangers standing nearby. They hadn’t said anything, but they knew, of course, that the situation was everything but ideal. They had lost co-workers and saw them returning as spiteful Hiss.

“I do have a good reason. Even Trench was more careful with his life than you are, Jesse. The Rangers and I, we’re going to go clear out the Hiss from the turntable with you. Arish has to stay and coordinate the rest, so the secured parts of the building stay secure.”

When Jesse started to object, Emily intercepted. “You promised you’d take Rangers with you, remember?”

“Yes, but you’re not-“

“No. I’m not. But I completed my training. I want to study the Hiss, I want to study your abilities and how you use them. You know, we can try and make it easier for you. Maybe we can use Black Rock to help you. Remember the knives? Maybe we can find something even more useful. I’d like to see how you interact with the building and with the Control Points to see if we can turn this into an advantage. I can’t do that when I’m stuck here-” Emily’s voice almost skipped, she was talking so fast. She was so determined.

“Emily”, Jesse stopped her. “I didn’t mean to imply that you’re not able to come down to the turntable.”

Arish stepped back upon hearing the more intimate tone in the voice of the Director. He motioned for the Rangers to check their gear. They got the hint.

“I’m just concerned that something bad could happen”, Jesse finished. “To you, or to the Rangers.”

Emily stepped closer. Jesse smothered her desire to touch her arm. Instead she bought her hand to her own shoulder, even though she knew it was a tell that she was nervous.

“I know, Jesse. But you can’t keep running into- into _suicide_ missions alone, even if you do come out of them. You get injured. Maybe you won’t come back at one point. Maybe you end up lying somewhere, hurt, and you can’t reach for help and I just- I just don’t want that to happen, ok?”

“Ok”, Jesse said and nodded.

“This will be an advantage, Jesse. Once the Rangers know how you operate, they can team up and assist you. They are able to hold their ground. I can’t go with you every time, but I if I can just see what it’s like, I’m sure my research can come up with useful stuff.”

“You know Emily, if you invented a Black Rock knife, I would definitely find a use for it. Let’s do this, then. I trust you and your judgement.” Jesse smiled, determined to steer her researcher away from the dark thoughts of dying.

“Thank you, Jesse”, Emily said, relived.

“What about a helmet?”

“It reduces my field of view.”

Jesse sighed. She couldn’t very well order her Head of Research to wear one if she did not, in fact, have one herself. She just hoped her worry for the other woman wouldn’t show or distract her while in combat.

After a short argument in which the Rangers tried to surround the Director and the Head of Research, Jesse broke up this formation, taking the lead. Emily was walking just a step behind her, gun in hand. She’d opted for a handgun, not a machine gun like the Rangers. It made her more mobile, but didn’t deal out as much damage. None of them had any illusions about how the Hiss was still everywhere. Hiss Charged or Distorted could come anytime and from any direction.

The faint chant in the hallways didn’t seem to faze the Rangers, but Emily kept looking around suspiciously every time it got louder. Maybe she tried to make out new words. She was always the researcher. Jesse hoped that it wouldn’t distract Emily while fighting.

Even though she had eradicated the mold-spreaders in the Medical Wing, the place was still a mess.

“We need to clean this”, said Emily. “It could come in handy.”

“Not enough personnel. And Underhill is not in the least interested in trying to actually get rid of it. She just tries to find out about its structure, its molecules.” Jesse sighed. “But maybe we can take the most relevant things with us to Central Executive on our way back.”

“Yes. We can turn one of the bigger offices into a temporary medical station at least.”

“Would that be ok for you guys?” she asked the Rangers. They’d need to lift and transport most of the things. _It’s only fair to ask_ , Jesse thought.  
“Of course ma’am, Director Faden”, said the one leading the group. His name was Raynor.

“You’re sure?”

“We’re happy to help. Our injured team mates will be grateful.”

“Alright, then. But first we need to concentrate on cleaning the turntable again. We can’t have them crawling around in the AWE sections.”

They made their way down the elevator in two groups but didn’t get far into the transit corridor before they were attacked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this one's shorter than the last, but there's more to come, I promise!  
> I hope you're enjoying this as much as I do. Check out [podgle's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/podgle/pseuds/podgle) stories, if you haven't already. They're exactly what we all need!  
> See you soon :)


	3. Chapter 3

Screeching Hiss Charged and Troopers came their way as if they’d waited for them. Emily set off precise shots at their heads. Their inhuman bend didn’t change the fact that she was an excellent shot. The Rangers tried to take out the Troopers, which kept their distance, ducking behind pillars, shooting from behind cover.

Jesse kept launching big chunks of concrete at them. The Hiss Charged came closer, there were so many. The Rangers abandoned their task to take out Troopers and steered their shots into the Charged, but they kept coming. Jesse dashed up front. She changed her weapon form to Charge and fired into the middle of the Hiss forces. Fight fire with fire. They were sucked into the blast and exploded themselves, but there were still at least five left.

She heard Emily shout her name. The Rangers demanded she come back to them, so she launched more concrete and backet up. Neither the Rangers nor Emily could take them out fast enough. The Charged came for them.

_Shit_ , Jesse thought as the screeching got louder. She put up the shield, hoping it would save all of them from the explosions. They were so loud that she couldn’t hear anything besides a high pitched sound for several long moments, just before they exploded. Her shield broke down, but the Charged were dead. The rainbow-like fog spread around her, it was thick from all of the Hiss that died on the exact same spot.

She spun around. “Are you ok?”, she asked, breathless. The Rangers kept their formation. Raynor nodded.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Emily looked a bit dazed, she’d been standing just behind her. The multicolored fog swirled around her, making Jesse dizzy. “This is remarkable. Wow- I- You never told me you could do this.”

“I- uh”, she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to have more tests run? She didn’t want to feel like a lab rat, even though Emily never treated her like one? Being the subject of tests wasn’t something she enjoyed. Being strange, being different had haunted her entire life. She was the one that believed in conspiracies. She thought there was a bureau dealing with paranormal happenings. The one without parents. The one who thought her brother was kidnapped by a secret agency. And now, apparently, the one with abilities no one ever saw before. Shielding, launching, dashing, seizing. “It didn’t come up.”

Emily smiled. “It’s just another amazing thing you can do, I see.”

“You saved us from the blast”, one of the Rangers said. “Thank you.”

“Yes”, Emily said. “Thank you.”

The turntable was just ahead. It was turned so that they could walk straight out onto the bridge. _I don’t think it was like this when I left_ , Jesse thought. She saw the crystal-shaped response from Polaris agreeing. _Strange_.

“We can’t scout, we have to just walk up on it and see.”

The Rangers nodded. One of them hoisted his machine gun. Emily exchanged her magazine for a new one, checking the others she had on her. Jesse’s ammunition was, of course, already charged up again.

Without waiting any longer, they stepped out onto the bridge in a close formation. An extradimensional entity drew lazy circles on the ground.

“What the fuck is that thing doing here?” asked Emily, astonished by what she saw.

“Don’t know. It’s been here since I first tried to get into the Ordinary AWE containment sector.”

“This is unacceptable, it’s a breach of- shit!” Emily cut off herself as Hiss Elevated started appearing. Some Troopers came running around, but they didn’t just shoot at them, but also at the entity. There were no Charged as far as Jesse could see.

“Don’t let them break us up”, warned Jesse.

The Rangers replied in unison. “No, ma’am!”

The Director watched as Emily went into full concentration. She set off precise shots once again, but the Elevated were harder to hit. They kept evading Emily’s shots and also the rubbish and concrete she launched at them, up until the point she levitated off the ground to be able to pursue them better.

“Jesse, can you get the shield off of those Warped?”

When Jesse looked down, she saw the three Warped that kept launching objects at her group and they were, in fact, breaking them up because the Rangers had to duck out of their way. She launched the pieces back and tried to ward off as many homing missiles as possible, throwing them back at the Hiss.

She forgot the Elevated in her concentration. Just for a second, but it was enough. One of them hit her full force, causing her to go down completely, landing hard on the bridge, sliding off until she fell down to the ground right beside the extradimensional entity. It immediately started moving towards her. Her wrist and shoulder hurt like hell.

She heard the Rangers shout. Emily appeared at the edge, shooting the Troopers that came near her. She knew she had to get up, get away from the entity. The sound it made inside her head was so loud that she thought she’d lose consciousness. Her vision was becoming white.

_This is not how I’m gonna die_ , she thought. Polaris crystals flared into her vision. She scrambled up, not waiting any longer, and dashed out of the area of activity of the entity. Jesse fell over again but levitated up to the edge of the bridge before she hit the ground. She couldn’t get high enough. _Fuck this!_ She was hit by another flying piece of concrete and spun down again. She launched back what she could without actually seeing where it went with her blurry vision.

“Jesse, get up here! Do it!”

She obeyed, levitating again. Trying to reach the bridge with just the Rangers’ and Emily’s voice to guide her. She was dizzy.

Raynor grabbed her arm and pulled her up once she was close enough. The other Rangers fought off the Levitated with their machine guns, but they didn’t have a chance against the Warped. Homing missiles kept coming. They exploded upon hitting the beams and braces of the bridge. Suddenly, the turntable began to move. One of the Rangers fell off the edge. He disappeared into the extradimensional entity, screaming.

“Fuck this!”, Raynor shouted.

Emily was looking wildly around herself. The turntable had stopped mid-turn. It was stuck again by the mold that had grown back. “What the hell is this! What’s happening?”

“They must’ve somehow gotten control over the turntable. We’re cut off, we can’t go back like this.”

One of the Rangers had been hit several times, his leg was a bloody mess but he didn’t give up. “Incoming!”, he shouted from his position on the ground.

Jesse caught the missile in mid-air, launching it back at one of the Warped, effectively destroying his shield. Blood was clouding her vision Hiss red. She hated it.

Emily moved closer to her, shooting the Troopers on the ground. Jesse dealt out headshots where she could, launching whatever was near into the Hiss forces, until all she could grab were their bodies. Her wrist felt like it would snap in two. She hadn’t had time and resources to seize them in this mess.

The Hiss were getting fewer.

Jesse rubbed away the blood from her eyes, concentrating on destroying the Warped shields. Her vision was still a little bit blurry, but not as much as before. The Elevated were gone, and when the last Warped disappeared in a cloud of rainbow fog, nobody said anything for a few minutes.

Just the rustling sound from the entity down on the ground could be heard in between heavy breaths.

“That _thing_ killed Miller”, Raynor said.

“It shouldn’t have been here at all. I don’t understand… Is this the one from Research? How did it get down here?”, asked Emily.

Jesse looked confused. “No. The one in Research is contained in that bizarre training course. This is a different one. There is another one in the Black Rock Quarry.”

“They have to somehow get into this dimension from the Astral Plane.” Emily watched it for a few moments. “Did they come through the Astral Bleed?” she murmured then.

“How would they come up here without destroying everything on their way?”

“This is not good.”

Jesse agreed.

“We have to shoot off the mold so the Turntable can complete it’s movement. Stay away though, they explode.”

“God, sometimes I hate this place”, said Raynor, taking off to the other side to shoot the mold. Jesse did the same, the turntable completed its half-circle.

“I’m going to the control panel to rotate it back so we can go and get the stuff from the Medical Wing and be on our way. You stay here, I can levitate back onto the bridge.”

Emily looked displeased, but didn’t object.

Jesse got to the control room without trouble, hitting the button. Yellow flashing lights indicated that it started rotating back, so she left the room and levitated off the ground.

The Rangers and Emily had gone to the side of the bridge that would connect nearest to their way out. Jesse couldn’t even shout out a warning when one single Hiss Charged came up beside the bridge, heading right for the group. She saw the Rangers backing up, shooting. She saw Raynor trying to grab Emily, who was in the epicenter of the blast when the Charged blew up.

She didn’t stand a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just going to leave this here.  
> (What's a multi-chaptered fic without a cliffhanger, anyways?)


	4. Chapter 4

_No!_

Jesse felt her heart constrict upon seeing the blonde surrounded by the explosion, vanishing into the goddamned multicolored fog.

She dashed forward. Emily went down, but one of the Rangers caught her before she hit the ground. Jesse could hear her scream. She saw blood. Touching the ground she started to run towards them. She lost balance, dashed forward. But she was too late already. The turntable was still moving.

Jesse panicked, shouting out to her friend but the blonde was screaming something she couldn’t understand.

“Her HRA”, Raynor called out urgently. “It’s damaged.”

“Oh no”, Jesse whispered. “No. No, no, no!”

Emily was clutching her head. Her bloodied hands grabbing at it, clenching and unclenching. Her whole body was curling into itself in blind panic.

The black HRA disk had a visible crack. Blunt force. All of the control lamps were off. It didn’t do anything anymore.

“Director, do something!”

“I can’t”, she said. She didn’t know what to do with her hands. Her breathing was getting faster.

“Do what you did to the Control Points!”

“No. No I can’t. I can’t!”

“She’s going under. You have to try” said Raynor. He was crouching beside her. Jesse hadn’t even noticed that she had gone down to her knees, pulling Emily’s head into her lap. Emily had deep cuts and burns on her arms, neck, face. Thick blood was oozing out of them. The Charged were like fragmentation grenades. They exploded into sharp pieces, cutting flesh and everything else in their way. Her Head of Research was still screaming, her muscles cramping.

“I tried it once, the woman died. I can’t kill her, I won’t.”

“Director”, he said with a stern tone of voice. “She will die like this. I’m sure she’d rather you try than turning into Hiss.” He spit out the last past as if it was acid in his mouth. He sure wouldn’t want to be turned into one of these spiteful creatures. He’d rather die at the hand of the Director, or through the bullet of one of his mates.

Jesse sucked in a quivering beath. “You’re right. Shit.” She could feel tears spring free from the corners of her eyes.

_Polaris, are you with me?_ Crystals swirled.

She put her hands on each side of Emily’s head, touching the soft strands of her hair for the first time without being able to appreciate the feeling. She concentrated, stifling a sob. The Hiss chant grew louder, pounding her head, piercing her brain.

_This has to stop. Stop hurting her. Stop it. Stop!_

But the chant didn’t stop. She felt Emily slipping further. Feeling lonely and scared. Listening to the chant.

_Listen to me. Don’t listen to them. Come back. Come on._ She reached out to Emily. This was something she hadn’t done with the woman in Central Executive. She hadn’t been able to feel her presence like this. Maybe because Polaris knew Emily? She saw the calming blue crystals swirling in the haze of red she found herself trapped in. There was chaos all around her. She visualized Emily. She was scared. _Please_. She begged. _Come back, please_.

She was above nothing to stop the Hiss from destroying Emily Pope.

_Please_ , she kept begging.

Slowly, the comforting swirl of blue erased the Hiss-red from her vision. She’d hoisted Emily up, clutching her to her chest in a vice grip. She didn’t scream anymore. Emily was still when Jesse breached the surface of consciousness again.

_Oh god, no_. Panicking again Jesse tried to feel a pulse, but found none. Her hands couldn’t get a grip on Emily’s blood-slick skin. The sinking feeling in her chest began to swallow her. _I killed her_.

Raynor was there, talking. “Director. Calm down. Miss Pope is fine. She’s fine. I can feel her pulse, I promise.” He pried Emily’s blood covered wrist out of her vice grip. “I promise.”

Jesse looked up. He held two fingers against Emily’s neck, counting heartbeats. “It’s a little bit too fast, but that’s expected.”

Jesse just stared at him.

“You panicked. You didn’t find the right spot, but I checked it as soon as you started getting the Hiss out of her. I was trained to do this, you know. I’ve been a Ranger out in the field for years.”

Jesse breathed a sigh of relief. _Thank you_ , she told Polaris. _Thank you so much_.

The other Rangers had surrounded them. “We need to go”, one of them said.

“She’s unconscious”, Raynor said. “I don’t think it would be wise to let go of her without an HRA.”

“She’s light, but I can’t carry her all the way.”

One of the Rangers spoke up, “Can you take her with you through the Control Point?”

“I never tried that. I don’t know.”

“Well, fighting off the Hiss for her worked just fine. We’ll find our way back up alone. We’ll bring the medical supplies. You go and get your girl to safety”, Raynor said, smiling slightly.

“She’s not my- I am the- I mean I shouldn’t…uh.”

And Raynor actually laughed at her. “Do not let go of her head”, he warned and lifted the Head of Research into his arms, carrying her towards the Control Point. He put her down again. Her torso was propped up against Jesse, who held her face in her hands.

The Ranger with the injured leg was assisted by another. His leg had been bandaged, but blood was seeping though the gauze.

“All of your HRAs are fine? You’re sure you’re fine on your own? Because I can come back if-“

“We will be fine. I promise. Right, mates?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Take her back and see that someone cleans those wounds. On both of you. She won’t like it when she wakes up and you look like someone tried to run you down with a truck”, he advised. “Otherwise, this will be on us. She gave clear instructions not to let you get injured or die.”

Jesse scoffed. “Alright. But, please, be careful. And thank you all. I wouldn’t have been able to fight them alone.”

“No problem, ma’am.”

Jesse reached out, feeling the center of the Control Point and willing herself and Emily to Central Executive. She gripped the blonde with force. She wouldn’t let go.

* * *

They turned up at the Control Point in Central Executive, right under the inverted pyramid. Two agents rushed to them when they saw what condition they were in, but didn’t know what to do. Jesse could feel blood dripping from her elbow onto the ground, but didn’t know if it was her own or Emily’s. Arish looked like he might go into shock.

“Get me an HRA. Please, hurry. Her HRA was damaged.”

She was still clutching Emily’s head, cushioning it against her body. She felt Emily’s breathing and it emitted a feeling of unbelievable calm inside of her. Polaris’ crystals swirled again. She enjoyed it, too?

Arish came down the steps to them, not saying anything. But he cut the HRA straps with his knife, pulling the useless thing off of her body.

Jesse let go of Emily after she checked the straps of the new HRA herself. Only then she allowed the agents to take care both of her own and of Emily’s injuries. She didn’t let her out of her sight until she was fully patched up.

“You look like someone tried to butcher you with an axe”, Arish said as they watched the Rangers return with loads of medical supplies. “You sure you went to the turntable and not into the Foundation?” 

Jesse appreciated his attempt to lighten the mood and even managed a small smile.

“But, seriously. What the hell happened down there?”

“I don’t know. There were way too many of them. I already cleaned out the Hiss there, there shouldn’t have been that many of them but- they were- they were everywhere at once. They trapped us on the turntable.”

“Damn it. Ok, alright.” He went to his Rangers and made sure they were as okay as they could be. Jesse watched as Raynor reported to his superior, before he came back to her. She just didn’t feel like moving. She wanted to go see Emily. They bought her into one of the empty offices, setting up a couch and someone to watch her until she woke up.

“I heard Miller was… I heard Miller’s gone”, said Arish, not looking at her but at the inverted pyramid.

“Yes. The extradimensional entity just, I don’t know, made him disappear.”

“From what you tell me, and from what Raynor said, it seems as if the Hiss concentrated their forces there and waited for you.” Arish did not look happy at all with this.

“Yes, that’s what I thought, too. If I had actually gone alone, they’d have killed me for sure.”

“Well, shit. Maybe it’s because they know they’re losing. They are cut off from their source since you shut down the projector.”

“Yeah, maybe.” It didn’t feel like victory at all.

“Anyways. How about you clean up a bit. I mean, no offense but… all of this blood won’t make Miss Pope happy when she wakes up, you know.”

Jesse smiled at that. She’d have to have a serious word with Emily when she woke up. About telling the Rangers to protect her at all costs, this wasn’t acceptable. She also had to thank her, had she gone alone she would be dead right now. But then again, had she gone alone, Emily would be safe and uninjured. She sighed. She just hoped that Emily would wake up soon – that she would wake up at all.


	5. Chapter 5

The Director earned a lot of side glances as she made her way to the nearest bathroom. She immediately understood why when she reached it and looked in the mirror. Blood smudged her face. The wound on her head had been stitched up by a medical assistant. Her wrist had been re-bandaged because the old bandage was not only smeared by more blood, but also dirty from all the concrete and ash. All in all she looked worse than she felt, actually. But her shoulder, the one on the side where the wrist was already hurt, had hit the ground when she fell down from the turntable. It hurt like hell. Her neck felt like it had been twisted too hard and she was sure that she had a concussion. Jesse needed to clean up and have a change of clothes for sure.

* * *

When Emily understood her surroundings again, the first thing she felt was loss. She couldn’t exactly remember what happened, but she was sure of one thing: that Jesse was dead. And that knowledge hurt more than she ever expected.

She remembered the Charged coming for her. She remembered seeing Jesse going down just after, in a Hiss-red haze. She heard the scream. But everything went black and red afterwards. Disturbing images. The screaming was so loud it had blocked out everything else.

Jesse falling down one last time was the only thing she saw clearly. Over and over again she saw her fall down. A piercing shot through her skull. The Hiss Charged screaming, the chant getting louder. Had something happened with the Hiss? Did they take Jesse?

What would she see when she opened her eyes? Maybe the Hiss didn’t need the projector to come into this dimension and that was why there were so many at the turntable. She’d tried so hard to get Jesse to be more careful, and now she was gone anyways. They were doomed with the Hiss still roaming freely around the building. And she was doomed to feeling lonely and stupid. She should’ve taken the opportunity to tell Jesse that she really liked her when she still had the time. Like, really, really liked her.

And now Jesse was dead.

Emily opened her eyes. She was in an office, she recognized her surroundings instantly, even in the dark. She didn’t know which one, but it didn’t matter. The goddamned bureau with its goddamned offices everywhere. Shifting around. Still always looked the same.

It made her mad to think that all of this crap happened and the bureau didn’t care. The Board just sent more cryptic messages. Those incompetent idiot entities letting Jesse do their dirty work without guiding her. Without training. Just let her pick up the gun and clean their mess.

_Fuck this_ , she said to herself, trying to sit up. She immediately fell back down. Emily was sure she had at least two broken ribs. She felt cuts and bruises all over, her head hurt, one of her arms was bandaged. She tried to assess the damage done to her body and came to the conclusion that she had been beaten up pretty badly.

“Stay still”, someone instructed in the dark. It sounded like Jesse.

Emily’s eyes flickered around, trying to make out the silhouette of the woman. “Jesse?”, she asked and tried to sit up again.

“What did I tell you?”, the other woman grumbled and helped her up gently.

She didn’t even recognize the pain in her limbs when she threw her arms around Jesse, sucking in a shaking breath.

“Emily, what’s going on?” Jesse asked, hugging her in return. She was kneeling in an awkward position on the floor beside the couch the agents put Emily to rest on after they patched her up, but that didn’t mean she didn’t revel in the feeling. Her shoulder just hurt so goddamned much in this position.

“I- I saw you dying. I saw you fall. I thought you were gone.” Emily didn’t let go. If anything, she hugged her tighter, hurting them both but the pain accentuated the realness of the situation.

Jesse let out a shaky laugh, almost suffocating it in a sob. “This is on you. You were hit by the blast of the Hiss Charged. I saw _you_ fall. And your HRA broke- you almost went under. You were already in a dark place. I’m sorry. I’m sorry it took me so long to get you back.”

“You got me back? How?”

The Director smiled at that. Always the researcher, of course Emily had to know how it had worked. If only she knew.

Emily let go of her, then, but only to draw her onto the couch beside her. She let her shoulder touch Jesse’s, needing the feeling of her there. She drew her legs up on the couch, shifting sideways so she almost curled into the Director.

“I don’t know. I was afraid I’d kill you, like the woman in Central Executive. I didn’t want to risk it, but Raynor was right when he said that you would want me to try rather than… let you become Hiss-“

“Yes. Absolutely. I don’t ever want to become like them. And you didn’t kill that woman, Jesse. The Hiss did.”

Jesse nodded at that. “I was still so afraid I’d hurt you somehow.”

“So, how did you do it?”

“When I concentrated, I could hear the Hiss chant. It was so loud. I think it was what you experienced, like Polaris got me closer to you, somehow.”

“I remember that. It was so loud that it was all I could hear and all I could feel”, she shivered at that. “I hated it, but I couldn’t evade it. I just saw you fall again and again and…”, she trailed off.

“I demanded it to stop, but that didn’t work. Then I tried to get you to listen to me, but you were too deep under. You were already so far gone, I waited too long.”

“Jesse, you did the right thing. I understand your hesitation, really.” Emily grabbed one of Jesse’s wringing hands. “I probably wouldn’t have come that far. I’d have killed you because I would have tried to calculate the risks.”

“In the end”, Jesse said, looking at their hands. Emily started playing with her fingers, lifting them one by one, stroking the back of her hand. She liked it. “In the end I just begged. I think Polaris did it, somehow. It was that or we both would be gone by now”, she finished.

“Jesse!”

“No. I wasn’t about to let you become Hiss or die. That wasn’t an option.”

Emily sighed. She wouldn’t be able to change Jesse’s mind on this. “Thank you”, she breathed instead of arguing and then leaned over, pressing her lips to Jesse’s cheek, lingering there before pulling back.

“Emily?”

“Yes?”

Jesse’s fingers threaded through hers. “Would you mind doing that again?”

Emily let out a delighted laugh. “Not at all. Would you like to participate?”

“Yes”, said Jesse. She smiled her crooked smile. “I just don’t know if-“ but Emily pressed her lips to the corner of her mouth. She lingered there, again. She loved that crooked smile and she wanted to taste it.

“OK?”, she breathed and Jesse nodded. The Director was perplexed when Emily pressed her lips against her forehead and temple before actually kissing her full on the lips.

When she did, it was like everything and nothing she expected. Emily’s perfect teeth nibbled her lip, soothing it with tiny kisses afterwards, grinning in between. Jesse could finally savor the softness of Emily’s golden strands when she tangled her fingers through her hair.

They broke apart for air. Jesse decided that she liked the intimacy of Emily’s kisses before, so she leaned down to kiss her jaw and then her brow. “If there is any bureau policy against this, I am revoking it right this second”, she then said.

“Please do”, said Emily. “Not doing this again is unacceptable.”

“Yes ma’am.” Jesse chuckled. She couldn’t remember feeling this light and happy – ever. “We should let Arish and the Rangers know that you’re awake. I told them I was going to check on you.”

“Wait”, Emily demanded.

“What?”

“How did I get here? I don’t remember anything, but you didn’t carry me all the way here, right?”

“Raynor could have. But they wanted to carry the medical supplies and we didn’t know how stable you were right after I got the Hiss away from you. The risk was too big, so- uh- he carried you to the Control Point. We- you know. We teleported here.”

“You teleported me?”

“I guess I did, yeah.”

“This is fucking unbelievable”, Emily said, exasperated. She pressed another kiss to Jesse’s lips. “Can you do it again, sometime? I can’t believe you teleported me and I _wasn’t awake to experience it.”_

Jesse chuckled again, then grinned brightly at her Head of Research. “I guess so. But maybe after we’re both healed, you know?”

“Deal!”

They got up, heading for the door but didn’t let go of the other’s hand until they reached it. Emily noticed that Jesse didn’t wear her combat gear anymore, but instead a plain black, long-sleeved shirt and dark pants. She also noticed that she herself wasn’t wearing her gear either, but someone had changed her into her civilian clothes: jeans and a grey pullover she loved because it was so soft. The hall was bright, nothing indicated time passing here. Arish was standing at his temporary command center, talking to a team leader. They were working shifts to secure the important areas. Jesse noticed that the Rangers had set up a temporary infirmary in the office opposite of the one they just emerged from.

They went down to join him. “Director, Miss Pope! I’m glad to see you’re both alright.” He nodded at them.

“Where’s Raynor?”

“He went to check on his injured friend. His leg is butchered, we couldn’t find a doctor that fast but he’s being treated right now.”

“Good.”

“Were there any more Hiss sightings?”

The security chief sent her a dark look. “I hope you don’t plan to try and kill any more of those in the immediate future. But no, there were none. We’re checking the functioning cameras, but we haven’t seen more than one at a time in hours.”

Emily nodded slowly. “It seems as if they gathered up at the turntable. They seemed like they actually had the intent to kill you, Jesse”, she said, shivering. “They didn’t expect you to bring forces because you never did before. Now that we broke them up, the remainder of them are disoriented.”

“Maybe, yes. But I don’t trust this.”

“You shut down the projector, ma’am, uh, Director”, said Arish.

“If we can take out the rest, we can set a 24 hour timer after that and lift the lockdown if no more sightings occur”, said Emily. “We just have to be careful, in case there are still some of them hidden somewhere.”

Jesse sighed. “You’re right.” She had not expected this to happen so quickly. Not that she was against it. These people needed to go home and rest. They needed new personnel. Most of them were more than ready to finally leave the building again. It was just that Jesse herself wasn’t sure how she would handle going out. She’d need an apartment here, a bank account.

_Shit_. How would she do that? Officially, she broke out of a psychiatric ward to go to a secret agency because something fundamental happened there that the voice in her head told her about. They’d absolutely try to get her back, to lock her up again, _treat_ her.

Emily saw her frown. She cast a glance at Arish, deciding that she wasn’t about to lose Jesse to bad thoughts. So she leaned over, whispering into the Directors ear: “You know, we can have our first date at my apartment, we don’t have to go out. Dinner’s on me, you can even crash on my couch.”

Jesse smiled and nodded, not giving a verbal response due to Arish looking at them curiously.

“Emily, can I talk to you for a second?”, she asked.

“Sure. Let’s go back into the Board Room.”

They took their usual chairs to talk. Jesse started fidgeting with her hands again until Emily took one of them. She knew that it would work, it worked before.

“What is it?”

“When we lift the lockdown, I’ll have to find an apartment.”

“Exciting, can I help choose one?”

“Sure, but that is not the problem”

“Why would there a problem…?” Emily couldn’t really follow where Jesse went with this. If she had stuff somewhere else, she’d have to hire a moving company. Being the Director was a high-stress job, but it was also compensated accordingly.

“It doesn’t end up well when you tell people that your town’s population disappeared into a slide projector. Or that your brother was taken by a secret agency. Or that… you have an entity in your head, you know.” Jesse nervously pulled at her shirt.

“I see”, Emily said. She was getting it now. She was sure she wouldn’t like what would come next.

“They pushed me around in child services, but nobody wants a crazy child like this, trying to escape to find the bad men that took her ‘dead’ brother. And then I was too old and I wasn’t doing so great as an adult, either. I was caught shoplifting and- you know. They sent me to a psychiatric ward.” She looked down.

Emily breathed out a quiet “oh no.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t pleasant, but I knew what I saw.”

“Polaris was with you.”

“No. No, she was gone for a while”, blue crystals flared into her vision. “But she came back. She got me out of the ward and into the Oldest House.”

“She knew we were in trouble. Hedron must’ve been somehow connected to her.”

“I think so, too. But if I go out now, set up a bank account, rent an apartment…”

“…they will know where you are and try to lock you up again.” Emily finished.

“Exactly.”

“I won’t let them take you”, the researcher said, matter-of-factly. “We can either set up a new identity for you or erase their records of you somehow. Darling and Trench were doing stuff like this all the time, otherwise they would not have been able to take Dylan or to cover up the whole Ordinary AWE, or any AWE, at all.”

Jesse looked uncertain. “Can we really do that? They were pretty clear about… you know- they said I am a threat to myself and to others. That they couldn’t let me go until I realized the things I ‘imagined’ as a child weren’t real.”

“Bullshit”, Emily spat out. “They won’t get you again. I promise. I’ll start working on something immediately.”

“Alright, then”, said Jesse, smiling. She stroked Emily’s palm, now that she calmed down. “Then let us prepare a plan to take out the last of the Hiss so you can buy me dinner.” 

“With pleasure”, Emily leaned forward. “But I don’t have to wait until then to kiss you, right?”

“No way! It could take us days to find all of them.”

“That’s what I thought”, Emily said. She stood up, stepping between Jesse’s legs to lean down for a kiss. “I can’t wait to treat you that dinner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, this is it.  
> I had so much fun writing this and I hope you enjoyed it as well :)  
> see you around,  
> Eins_Esk


End file.
